{"id":30425,"date":"2018-06-20T23:55:40","date_gmt":"2018-06-20T23:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=30425"},"modified":"2018-06-20T23:58:04","modified_gmt":"2018-06-20T23:58:04","slug":"shameful-sign-removed-for-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=30425","title":{"rendered":"Shameful sign removed &#8230; for real?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/libs-get-out.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-30415\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/libs-get-out-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/libs-get-out-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/libs-get-out.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Media are reporting something good coming out of something hideous.<\/p>\n<p>Fox News says that ghastly sign that invited &#8220;liberals&#8221; to &#8220;please continue on I-40 until you have left our great state of Texas&#8221; has been taken down.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t live in the Texas Panhandle these days, so I&#8217;m left to take the media outlet at its word, that the sign is gone. It had been erected in Vega, Texas, just a bit west of Amarillo.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m wondering now about the <em>why<\/em> and <em>by whom<\/em>. Why did the person who put the sign up decide to remove it? I&#8217;ll hold out some glimmer of hope that whoever is responsible for it got shamed into taking it down.<\/p>\n<p>The billboard that contained the sign is owned by Randy Burkett, a former Amarillo City Council member. He served a single term from 2015 to 2017, then decided he wouldn&#8217;t seek a second term.<\/p>\n<p>Good deal, yes? Given his ownership of this billboard, I&#8217;d say <em>&#8220;yes, definitely.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Such a closed-minded point of view on a well-traveled public interstate highway sends a chilling message to those passing through. Their unmistakeable takeaway is that people with a &#8220;liberal&#8221; or &#8220;progressive&#8221; world view are not welcome here.<\/p>\n<p>What the hell kind of message is that to send in a nation that is supposed to welcome all kinds of thought and political expression?<\/p>\n<p>I do hope the message is gone. I also hope it stays gone.<\/p>\n<p>As for who put the sign up and then took it down, may this individual &#8212; whoever he or she is &#8212; decides to exercise at least a modicum of discretion when expressing a political point of view.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Media are reporting something good coming out of something hideous. Fox News says that ghastly sign that invited &#8220;liberals&#8221; to &#8220;please continue on I-40 until you have left our great state of Texas&#8221; has been taken down. I don&#8217;t live in the Texas Panhandle these days, so I&#8217;m left to take the media outlet at &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=30425\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Shameful sign removed &#8230; for real?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[276,1788,2301,2780,7630,4668],"class_list":["post-30425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-amarillo","tag-fox-news","tag-interstate-40","tag-liberals","tag-progressives","tag-texas-panhandle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30425"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30428,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30425\/revisions\/30428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}